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There and Back Again

An unlikely American finished the toughest sailboat race in the world at age 58.

By

Angus Phillips

Jan. 1, 2013 3:42 p.m. ET

As you read this from the comfort of your easy chair, a dozen or so madmen are hunkered down in the Southern Ocean, weary and far from land, hurrying as fast as ever they can to get back to where they started last November and complete a circumnavigation in whatever is left of their battered boats.

This is the Vendée Globe, the most challenging sailboat race on earth: 28,000 miles around the world, nonstop, single-handed in 60-foot-long, overpowered seagoing survival capsules, crossing three oceans, north to south and east...